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“We need help here,” said Dmitriy Zolotukhin, an independent military analyst. “We need the world to stand with us or who knows what could happen?”

Canada has offered help.

What they got from Prime Minister Stephen Harper is not going to ensure an immediate end the war but it is better, however, than what anybody else in NATO has offered so far.

Words are not going to solve this crisis here and that’s about all that came from the world leaders at the NATO Summit in Wales.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said the alliance asked Russia “to step back from confrontation and take the path to peace” and the leaders talked about their commitment to a “strong” Ukraine and that they are “determined to make it even stronger.”

Harper went further than any of the other NATO members to date.

He has offered money aimed directly at the Ukraine war front and he has also offered military planners to join an American-led exercise on the western side of the country this month.

But it’s true that 13 soldiers and $4 million is not going to fend off Russian-backed aggression in this country’s eastern region.

But it’s a start and an acknowledgment that there is a war going on here and what side Canada is on.

The Harper government is not waffling.

If only the Russian leadership would admit their involvement.

President Vladimir Putin scoffs when NATO talks of several thousand Russian troops backing rebels fighting in Ukrainian territory or at satellite imagery that shows Russian tanks and trucks over the border.

While the NATO leaders in Wales talk about doing something, Harper took the bold move Thursday by offering some financial help.

He pledged, according to the Sun News Networks Faith Goldy, $3 million to help with “cyber-security” and $1 million to help modernize commutations and command capabilities.

“We thank you, very much indeed for this unity with Ukraine and the Canadian people in solidarity with us,” said President Petro Poroshenko. “There is a big Ukrainian minority that keeps touch with us. And the fact that Canada was the first country to recognize Ukrainian independence 23 years ago and thank you very much for that.”

Canada previously supplied $5 million in humanitarian aid to help displaced Ukrainians. Our RCAF is also on the ground and in the air in Lithuania as well.

It is appreciated, says Zolotukhin.

All of NATO should follow suit and make a strong stand on this before it’s too late, he said.

“Ukraine is not the problem,” he said. “Ukraine is the solution.”

If nothing is done to quell the ambitions of Putin in eastern Ukraine, he believes, not only will it fall like what happened in Crimea but who knows what region is next.

“He just said he could take Kiev in two weeks,” said Zolotukhin in an interview that can be seen in our video on torontosun.com. “How many weeks will he need to take former Soviet-era cities like Berlin, Villinus, Riga or Talinn?”

He also wonders how many need to die before somebody on all sides decide it’s too many.

It’s business as usual in Kiev. It’s not a war zone like other parts of the country.

But every once in a while a soldier fresh from the front lines walks Maidan Square in uniform to look at the remnants of the slaughter in the square in February. I saw many holding hands with their wives and loved ones and gazing up at the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag with pride.

“Sometimes you need to have an enemy to help build a nation,” said Ottawa’s Anna Dombrovska. “That is what is happening here. This is bringing Ukrainians together.”

They know their people are dying.

You don’t have to be in the front lines of the carnage here to feel the sting of death. Col. Andriy Lysenko told a media briefing here that so far there have been 837 Ukrainian soldiers killed in fighting and more than 3,000 wounded.

“These number would not be possible if it was not for Russian assistance in this,” he said.

Ukraine is going to need more help in this battle but at least Canada’s prime minister is one of the people who realizes Ukraine is not the problem.